


A Simple Adventure

by TheStrangeSeaWolf



Series: Quarantine Fluff [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Acceptance, Brain, Clothing, Crying, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fear of Slapping, Fields of Trenzalore, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Hugs, Memories, POV Twelfth Doctor, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reading, Reading Aloud, Self-Loathing, Soft Twelfth Doctor, Tea, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, Understanding, black hole, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:15:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 21,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22506916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStrangeSeaWolf/pseuds/TheStrangeSeaWolf
Summary: When the Doctor comes to fetch Clara on a Wednesday for another adventure she’s nowhere to be seen. Turns out she doesn’t need a hero to save her, this time.Set somewhere in Season 8.This started off as a one shot. But then, when a reader complained "But it ended too soon.. Could use a few more "cuddling" chapters" I wrote it further following the prompts I got. I think what it became is some "Season 8/9 character development fast forward fluff AU" if there is such a thing. Clara and the Doctor try to understand each other and their bond and trust in each other grows strong and stronger. Written from Twelve's point of view.If you speak Russian, Al'bina was kind enough to translate it into your language here:https://ficbook.net/readfic/9434278
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Series: Quarantine Fluff [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672567
Comments: 108
Kudos: 192





	1. An Odd Wednesday

**Author's Note:**

> For me, February is the worst month for dealing with seasonal depression. Hence, have another fluffy story to cope and keep going.

“Clara?”

When the Doctor stepped out of his TARDIS, he was surprised Clara wasn’t waiting for him. Maybe he missed? In this incarnation, he didn’t like the idea of a fixed appointment on Wednesdays at all. To be honest, he hated it. He wanted to catch Clara whenever he had found something exciting to see or received a distress call. Adventuring alone sucked. It was not half as much fun telling her what he had done as doing it together with her.

But he tried to adjust to the needs of his little control freak.

He checked again but he made it exactly on time and this was without any doubt her flat. He paced around but she was nowhere to be found. Maybe in her bedroom? He knew that entering there without her permission was a big no-no and she would slap him if he did so. He weighed the pro’s and con’s and decided he risked the slap. 

“Clara?”

He asked as he slowly opened the door.

There was someone cuddled up under a duvet in the bed.

He suspected it to be Clara.

Odd.

He had double-checked the time, it was 2 p.m. not a.m. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“Clara?” He asked again.

“Go away!” Came a muffled answer.

It was definitely her.

“Go away? Don’t be ridiculous! It’s Wednesday. We do have an appointment to keep. Wake up, sleepy head!”

He sat beside the huddled creature under the duvet and slightly shook where he thought the shoulders would be.

A head appeared from under the duvet.

“I told you to go away!”

Oh no. Not only was her face all eyes, they were also red and wet. He remembered what that was. Some time ago, before this incarnation, he was able to do that, too. She had cried.

It hit him hard.

Maybe he lost his ability to read faces, understand human behavior and express what he was feeling in this incarnation but no matter how it looked from the outside, his emotions were still intact.

Crying was bad.

Something was very, very wrong with Clara and he needed to find out what.

“Are you wounded? Are you in pain?”

He asked, pulling out his screwdriver.

“Are you ill?”

He was scanning her. All readings came back as normal.

“Seems everything is alright. Which is not true, obviously. What else could be wrong with you?”

He was really confused and hoped he could find out.

“There’s nothing wrong with me, just go away, Doctor. There’s nothing to analyze about me.”

Her voice sounded hoarse. Probably because she had been crying for some time. She also sounded a bit cross with him, but he didn’t pay too much attention to that because she was cross with him most of the time. It was something this new incarnation did or didn’t do. He would find out, eventually, sometime in the future, but at the moment her wellbeing concerned him much more.

“Your eyes are leaking, and your voice sounds like a drunken sailor, so there is something wrong with you, Clara. Why don’t you tell me what it is?”

“You wouldn’t understand it even if I tell you. So why don’t you just hop into your blue box and go, save the universe and come back another day?”

She pulled the duvet over her head once again.

She probably was right. He didn’t understand it. He doubted his previous self would have, for that matter, but he wasn’t sure.

He shortly considered to establish a telepathic connection to see what’s wrong but figured that she would be really, really cross with him if he tried to read her mind.

He considered to just do as he was told and go away.

He got up and headed for the door.

But it was Wednesday. His day with her. He somehow felt robbed if she skipped one. Not that it really mattered for a Time Lord, he could jump to next Wednesday, but for her it would have been a week of her life… He didn’t like that thought at all.

Maybe there was something he could do to make it better even if he had no idea what the problem was. Something that would make her at least smile again. Just a little.

“Clara? Is there anything I can do? Anything that helps? I… I don’t know…”

He stopped and thought of things he saw she liked, apart from adventuring.

“Maybe bring you something? Maybe tea? Or cookies? Or a book? Or tea and a book? A tea and a book and cookies?”

She lifted the duvet and looked at him surprised, as if she saw him for the first time after regeneration. He felt a bit uncomfortable under her stare and looked to his feet.

“I… I only thought…”

He heard her sigh.

“Doctor, there is something that would help, something so simple that any human being and every other incarnation could do it, but you can’t.”

He looked up and stared into her red rimmed eyes. Her words hurt him deep inside. What was it he was not capable of that apparently everybody else was? He sure loathed this new man he had become, but what exactly was his fault? What could he not do? He was willing to do anything if it just helped his small, fragile, human companion.

“What? I’m a Time Lord, I doubt there is anything I can’t do when humans and other Time Lords can.”

“A hug,” she sighed, “it’s one of the occasions where a simple hug could do so much. But it would have to be a heartfelt hug, not one I force you to accept and you count the seconds until it is finally over.”

It hit him like the lash of a whip.

A hug.

If she only knew.

Things were complicated. There were various reasons he shied away from them in this incarnation, apart from still trying to adjust to his new personality after regeneration.

Trenzalore had implanted a deep-rooted alertness and mistrust in the next incarnation. He was not able to relax, not for a single minute.

He was not able to control his telepathic abilities sufficiently enough, so it took a lot of effort to shield his own thoughts when he touched someone.

His previous self had always touched and hugged Clara, and he suspected that because of this Clara hadn’t pursued a relationship with another human. He didn’t think this was good. She shouldn’t waste her precious lifetime with a Time Lord, she should look out for a nice human, maybe one with whom she could start a family. Clara was good with children and he was sure her kids would be smart, beautiful and simply adorable. Maybe they would like to have a trip with their weird space uncle every now and then… But it was important to make clear that he wasn’t her boyfriend, and this also included that he would not touch or hug her so she wouldn’t become too attached to him.

And now, the look she gave him broke his hearts.

What kind of a Doctor was he if he couldn’t provide the simple comfort of a hug for his companion?

“A simple hug would be enough, you think?” He asked.

She wiped another tear from her eye, blew her nose and nodded.

Well, if a hug would help her, he wanted to try. He had a faint idea how he could do it if she stood in front of him, but she was in bed. So, the technical question of “how” added to the stress he already felt.

He would find a way.

He always did.

He cleared his throat.

“Well, just because I’m not a hugging person anymore doesn’t mean I can’t…”

He stepped to the side of the bed and sat down near the headboard. He hesitantly patted on his thigh. Clara knitted her eyebrows, but then came closer and rested her head on his thigh and against his belly. He reached his arm around her in a way he hoped came across as protective and chaste as he meant it.

He carefully shielded his brain to prevent telepathic bonding.

“Now, won’t you tell me what made water come from your eyes?”

He asked, trying to make his voice sound as tender and soothing as he could manage.

She shook her head.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said with a small sob.

“I’m over 2,000 years old. Don’t you think I have seen enough human emotional pain to understand a lot of things?”

“That’s it. You saw so much sorrow, cruelty and death in your life that my problems are nothing in comparison. You wouldn’t understand how it could even bother me. It’s just not important.”

Oh, how well he understood, how well he knew those self-loathing thoughts himself. He couldn’t help but stroke her soft brown hair.

“Who says it’s not important? If it hurt you enough to make you cry, Clara, it can’t be unimportant. Why don’t you just tell me what happened?”

“You’ll find it ridiculous and boring.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. It is Wednesday. We have a whole day. And if this is not enough, we have all of time and space on top of that. Why don’t you just… bore me?”

She moved a bit so she could look up to him. For the first time today, a faint smile crinkled the corners of her mouth.

He smiled back, hoping it came across reassuring and not too scary. To emphasize his encouragement, he rubbed her shoulder with his thumb.

He couldn’t recall the last time someone close to him had not needed him as the hero to save them, but as a friend who listened. He wasn’t sure it had happened at all and he wasn’t even sure he was good at it. But he would try.

It was a different kind of an adventure, but he sure counted it as one.


	2. A Time Lord Listening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, I had quite a few requests to enhance that story and some prompts. As I feel we are all in need of a bit of extra fluff I’m glad to oblige. I will try to include all your prompts, but it might take one or two chapters more. The Doctor is a Time Lord and he might need some time to learn – or re-learn – some of the things you requested.

Listening. He hadn’t done it in years, really listened to someone. It wasn’t his strong suit. He wanted to walk around, look around, do something, fix something. Yet, he tried his best listening to the small woman who rested her head on his thigh and told him about what must have been a terrible week.

He didn’t understand much of it, he would have preferred quantum mechanics, astrophysics, planets, black holes or anything he was more familiar with. Human emotions and relationships were complicated as such, and he didn’t understand a thing about the office politics that apparently were going on behind the scenes in Coal Hill. And he had to be careful not to let his thoughts stray, otherwise he completely lost the plot.

“…to sum up, I’m under close observation now and the headmaster contemplates to assign me to another school.”

“Another school? How would that help?” He still tried to make sense of what she told him.

“He wouldn’t have to deal with me anymore?” Clara looked up to him surprised and incredulous.

“But he would lose you.”

“Yes, sure, that’s kind of the point, Doctor.”

“Why would anyone want to lose you?”

He couldn’t imagine how anyone in his right mind wouldn’t want to have Clara around. She was domineering and sometimes annoying, but she was also clever and resourceful and understood complex problems. And she knew how to deal with situations that required understanding human behavior. The headmaster was probably not a smart person. It sounded a lot like it.

“Sometimes you can be really sweet, Doctor. Clueless, but sweet.”

She smiled a little bit when she looked up at him. He was not sure what she meant by that, but he liked sweet things, and he knew she did, too, so it was probably meant to be something positive. And she smiled, which warmed his hearts. He smiled back.

“Ah, well, that must all sound pretty boring and insignificant to you, Doctor.”

“No, it doesn’t… It sounds rather complicated, to be honest. Complex and confusing. And I fear I don’t have any solution to this problem. Your headmaster is an idiot and some of your colleagues are terrible people, but I fear there is nothing I can do about that. I can’t go back in time and change how they grew up or what made them like they are now, Clara.”

“I’m not telling you all this to make you do something about it.”

“You don’t?”

He was genuinely surprised. What was the point of telling someone something if one didn’t expect the other being able to help?

“No, I’m telling you because it helps if someone else is listening.”

“But listening doesn’t change anything? Everything stays the same?”

Clara was quiet for a bit before she answered.

“It’s a bit complicated… Do you really like to have it explained? I mean… Are you really interested, or do you ask out of politeness, calculating formulas in your mind while I speak?”

Admittedly, he had to be careful not to do exactly that. He understood so little of the human problems going on in Clara’s story, but he really wanted to learn more about his favorite species. Well, maybe not about the species as such, but he wanted to learn more about this one specific human being who for whatever reason liked to be held by him.

“Wow, you suspect me being too polite is a completely new take!” He teased her. “Yes, I really would like to know. Humans are strange to me. This hugging thing for example…”

“Are you uncomfortable with it?”

“A bit.” He admitted.

“Oh.” She said and lifted her head, trying to get up.

“No, no, stay, that’s not what I meant.” He assured her and tightened his grip.

He sighed.

“Time Lords are telepathic… but not all incarnations are the same. Some are strong telepaths who can establish links over some inches or even over miles. Others have to touch a person’s head to establish a link. And this incarnation…” he shrugged, “is probably the worst telepath I’ve ever been. Not only do I need to touch someone to establish a link, I have to be careful not to establish one by accident. So, when you hug me, I have to be careful not to accidentally read your thoughts.”

“Would I notice?” Clara asked with a frown.

He looked at her surprised. That was a good question. He never thought about it.

“I… I don’t know… I never thought about it.” He admitted.

“But you feel it would be wrong even if I wouldn’t know it?” She looked at him strangely. He tried to place the facial expression. It looked as if she didn’t believe him.

“Of course, it would be wrong to read your thoughts without your consent, is that even a question? Clara, Clara, Clara, sometimes I wonder if you see me as… I don’t know… some kind of monster that is totally indifferent to everyone around it.”

“Sorry, Doctor, it is just… you admit yourself that you don’t understand humans, and sometimes you act… well, very pragmatic, even callous, so I’m a little surprised that you really care about the privacy of my thoughts.”

That was it. She really saw him as cold and indifferent. It hurt him more than he had expected. It was probably his fault. But still.

“Clara, when we are in dangerous situations, I have to make decisions. I can’t care about details. But this doesn’t mean I’m indifferent. I just have to move on, otherwise more terrible things happen.”

They fell silent for a while.

He wondered if she would ever be able to understand how it was like to be the one who had to decide, always, even if there were only terrible options available. How it was like to know that no matter what he did, there would always people suffer and die.

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” Clara said after a while.

“What… for?” He was confused.

“I think I was not really ‘seeing’ you the whole time since you regenerated.”

He was shocked and withdrew his arm immediately. Had she read his thoughts? Had he not shielded his brain carefully enough?

“Did… Did my thoughts leak? I’m sorry!”

“What do you mean? Did your thoughts leak?”

“You answered to what I thought, so it seems I didn’t shield my brain good enough. I’m sorry! I told you I’m not a good telepath in this incarnation! If we touch and I’m not careful I might not only accidentally read your thoughts, mine can also leak into your brain. Sorry this has happened.”

He tried to stand up, but Clara reached for his arm.

“Your thoughts didn’t leak, Doctor, don’t worry. I just understood something right now. Please stay.”

He looked down at the small hand that had grabbed his sleeve. Tight, nearly as if she feared he would disappear if she let go. What an odd reaction. He really didn’t understand humans.

“I’m not going anywhere if you don’t want me to, Clara. But… why is hugging so important to you? What does it do?”

“You can’t be serious, Doctor! You hugged me all the time in your previous incarnation. You know what a hug is and what it does!”

“That was long ago, Clara. For you it might seem like just a few months, but for me it is hundreds of years ago. If you…”

He trailed off. He could hear the screams and smell the blood and the smoke and the burning flesh again. Trenzalore! He quickly bit his lip. The pain made sure he stayed in the here and now. He took a deep breath and focused on the tiny, fragile hand grabbing his sleeve. This was real. He was in Clara’s flat. He was in safety and this was not the time and the place for his troubles. His companion was not okay. It was his duty to care for her.

“Perhaps I just… have to relearn certain things, Clara.” He tried to smile but failed.

“It’s difficult for you, Doctor. Just listening, not doing anything, right?”

If she really wasn’t reading his thoughts, she was exceptionally perceptive. 

“Ah, I wouldn’t say so… just… I’m not familiar with how to do it right.” He admitted.

“Don’t worry, Doctor, you are doing great.”

Clara sighed and snuggled closer to him. They fell silent for a while. He didn’t know what to say or do to make her feel better and she seemed to be lost in her own thoughts.

“Hey, you?” She finally said, softly stroking his arm. Was that a smile in the corner of her mouth? It nearly seemed like it. “What was it about tea and cookies? Do you think you can fetch some?”

He breathed relieved. Something to do. His mood brightened instantly and smiling came naturally.

“Sure! Earl Grey and chocolate chip cookies? Ceylon and gingerbread with butter? Rooibos with loads of milk and Oreos? I can even hop in the TARDIS and get you some tea out of Queen Victoria’s kitchen if it makes you happy!”

Now, that was definitely a smile on her face.

“You’ll find Earl Grey and a roll of your favorite chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen cupboard, Doctor, no need to bother Queen Victoria. I think you mentioned she is not exactly a fan of yours.”

She let go of him so he could get up.

“Ah, she’s just jealous because I’m better at training dogs,” he grinned at Clara, got up, stretched his back which hurt from sitting too long in an uncomfortable position and trotted towards the kitchen.

What an adventure! Being a good companion was much more difficult than fighting monsters. But he would try. He was sure he could serve tea and cookies like the best companion in this galaxy. And afterwards he would give this whole hugging and listening thing a second try. He was sure he could learn how to do it right.


	3. Tea, Cookies And Care

The Doctor waited for the water to boil in Clara’s kitchen. He had already set two mugs and the role with cookies on a tray. Somehow it didn’t look like Clara did it. He checked that all necessary supplies were available: spoons, the milk carton, a box with sugar, two napkins, yes, everything was there. So, what was different? Somehow it looked _nicer_ when Clara did it. Why?

He went through the footage of past occasions where they had tea and cookies together. He filed them away in a special place in his mind. Things he wanted to remember when he thought about Clara because they were special. There were quite a lot of memories and he counted about 30 occasions of them having tea together. He looked at them closely and found out what it was he had not done.

He took a small milk jug and poured some milk in it. He took out a sugar bowl and filled it with enough sugar lumps, which was basically filling it to the brim, and placed the box back in the cupboard. He took the napkins and folded them into two ships. Then he took the cookies and arranged them in a circular form on a plate.

He stepped back and had a look at it. Better. He poured the tea. He gave the plate with cookies a scrutinizing stare while he waited. He rearranged the cookies. Then, he searched the cupboard and found a package of wafer rolls. He added some and looked again. It was sneaky and she wouldn’t realize it, but he liked the idea anyway.

The tea was ready, he took the tray and went to the bedroom. Clara sat upright now, her back against the headrest, reading a book. When he came in, she put the book on the nightstand and looked at him with a hint of a smile. She already looked a bit better than before he realized with relief. He placed the tray, which had legs for using it in bed, in front of her.

“Wow, Doctor, you really put some effort in this,” she remarked.

He couldn’t help but beam at her and feel a little proud of himself. He assumed he looked like an insane werewolf again, at least that was what Clara usually told him when he felt glad and smiled. He sat down on the edge of the bed, on the opposite side of the tray.

“Wafer rolls? Where did you find them?”

“In the kitchen cupboard. I hope they were not reserved for a special occasion?” He ducked his head, preparing for a slap if they had been.

“No, it’s okay, Doctor. I just forgot there were any left.” She paused and looked at him. “You are not really afraid I slap you for it, are you?”

“I don’t know, I always try to anticipate if you will or if you won’t, but it’s really hard to tell sometimes. Humans are complicated.”

“But it doesn’t really hurt you if I do?”

“Not really. At least not physically. It’s okay, really,” he assured her.

She looked at him strangely. Her eyes inflated. He just hoped they wouldn’t begin to leak again. He hated when they did. He never knew how to react to it.

Suddenly she reached out to him. He instantly flinched, but she just put her hand on his cheek. A strange feeling, she never had done that before.

“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to be afraid of me slapping you, that’s not okay. There are better ways to tell you that you should reconsider your actions. I promise I will never slap you again, Doctor.”

He closed his eyes. From his point of view, she had every right to slap him if he did something wrong, even if he didn’t know what it was. But it was nice that she considered not doing it again. He felt her thumb stroking his cheek. It was a completely new feeling, at least for this incarnation. A bit scary. But nice. Soft. Tender.

He opened his eyes and met the gaze of her two brown eyes, the first eyes that saw this face. His hearts felt warm when she looked at him like that. He smiled and she smiled back. The moment was nearly too intense, so he quickly looked down to the tray between them.

She slowly let her hand sink and reached for the cookies. She stopped.

“That nearly looks like Gallifreyan writing, Doctor.”

“Yes, it is!”

Now he was sure he was really grinning like an insane werewolf. She had noticed what he had done with the cookies and the wafer rolls.

He suddenly felt an earlier version of himself breaking his way to the present. Sometimes that happened; past personality traits or phrases breaking through.

“You are very smart for noticing it,” he said and did something this incarnation wouldn’t usually dare to do:

He booped Clara’s nose.

It made her look cross-eyed at his finger, which was an endearing sight. And after a short moment of surprise she giggled.

“Doctor!”

It was an adorable sound.

“What?”

He winked at her. Perhaps he should do that more often? It was childish, but what was the point of being a 2,000-year-old Time Lord if he wasn’t allowed to act childish from time to time?

“Nothing. What does it say?”

“It’s a Gallifreyan blessing. It is the wish that you feel better. And there is also the dimension of time included. It is the one that means: ‘this should happen before you even read this’.”

“Oh, it says ‘Get well, soon’ in Gallifreyan?”

“It simplifies it a bit, but basically, yes, that’s it.”

“Awww, that’s really sweet, Doctor. I’m really surprised. I never knew that you can be so… I don’t know how to word it…”

“Domestic?”

“Thoughtful. Caring and thoughtful.”

He was glad she liked his thought and blushed. At the same time, it hurt him because he always cared for her. He cared and worried about her, but he also tried to respect that she was an independent and strong woman. It was really complicated to be a good companion.

“I always care for you,” he protested slightly, “it is just that usually you don’t seem to need or even want me to care for you.”

“Really?”

She seemed surprised. He nodded.

“You always seem like nothing really affects you. Solid like a rock. And you are always cross with me if I want to keep you out of danger.”

“That’s something different. If we are out adventuring, we are in this together. I’m your companion. You can’t expect me to stay behind when you go into a dangerous situation. Who will save your superior Time Lord arse if I’m not with you?”

He sighed. It was probably not a good idea to argue with her about that point right now.

“Okay. But you never told me what is going on in Coal Hill. I always assumed that things went well there. This is the first time you told me that there are problems and that you are close to being transferred to a different school. And I’m surprised, because you are a good teacher.”

She stared at him with a look he couldn’t quite place. Was she offended? Upset? Confused? He just hoped she wouldn’t… no, she had promised him that she wouldn’t slap him.

“You really think that? That I’m a good teacher?”

“Of course. Sometimes I put on the caretaker disguise and sneak beneath the window of your classroom to listen to your lectures in English literature. They are quite engaging. You know, I usually know the people who have written that stuff personally, but I didn’t read all of it or if I did it was long ago, and I have forgotten most of it. So, I listen to what you have to say about it and afterwards I read some of it. Often it makes me see things I hadn’t noticed before.”

What was that? Oh no, there was water in her eyes. She was going to cry again. What had he done wrong this time?

“Doctor,” she sniffled, “…would you… would you mind…” she reached out her arms towards him,” …just hug me, okay?”

He carefully placed the tray beside the bed and reached out his arms. He had really forgotten how to do this properly, but he figured she would know what to do.

He felt how she closed her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder. He carefully placed his arms around the upper part of her body, one hand resting on her back, the other on her shoulder. He hoped this was okay.

She began to sob and her whole body shook. It instantly broke his hearts. He only wished to know what he had done wrong that made her so sad. Maybe he should just ask. She really should tell him, otherwise he couldn’t avoid hurting her again.

“Clara…” he said softly, “What have I said or done that hurt you so much? Please tell me. I’m not good at these… human… emotional… things and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Nothing.” She sobbed under her tears. “You have done nothing wrong, Doctor. On the contrary.”

“But it very much seems like it. You didn’t cry like this before.”

“It’s just… Nobody said that they thought I was a good teacher in years.”

“No?”

“No.”

“But you are.”

“You are so sweet today, Doctor.”

He didn’t know what to say or to do. If what he had said wasn’t a bad thing, but on the contrary a good thing, then he didn’t understand why she cried at all.

“I… I don’t think I understand what happens here. Why are you crying?”

She sobbed and pressed herself even closer to him.

“I… I think I can explain it later, Doctor. I just can’t right now. Just hold me for a bit, will you?”

He obeyed and let her cry against his shoulder. He tried to remember what former incarnations had done when this had happened. He started to softly stroke her back. She didn’t protest, so it was probably not wrong. She even seemed to calm down a little bit.

Humans were complicated beings, and this was a really scary adventure. He just hoped Clara would explain what was wrong later because right at this moment he felt out of his depth and completely helpless.


	4. A Time Lord's Brain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in the last chapter I fulfilled the twitter request by SonicCookie for the nose boop. In this chapter I tackled the request by peternotpizza for an accidental telepathic link, although I took the liberty to reverse it. Hope you like it, anyway!

The Doctor held his small human companion in his arms who was still crying. The sobbing had ceased now, but he could still hear her sniffle and the soft sound of teardrops falling on his coat.

He desperately searched his memories what to do under such circumstances. He skipped the ones from this incarnation because he already knew he wasn’t good at human emotions. He hoped some of his past incarnations were better at it. But no matter which memories he searched through, from bowties him to grandfather him, they all didn’t know what to do when a companion broke down emotionally. None of them knew the right things to say or to do.

He was stuck with the limited resources of this self. What did he do when he didn’t feel good?

Easy.

He just landed the TARDIS in the vicinity of Clara’s coordinates and looked what she was up to. She would scold him for showing up uninvited and not on the right day, they would banter and finally she would begrudgingly agree to join him in an adventure. Problem solved.

Was that helpful in this case?

He looked down and realized that she still wore her pajamas in the middle of the day. She didn’t seem up for bantering or adventuring. Well, maybe it was best to ask what he should do.

“Hey?”

He carefully stroked the shock of brown hair, a gesture all his previous incarnations had used if they had to comfort someone. Besides, he loved to touch it, it felt exactly like it smelled, like a warm spring day on a peaceful blue meadow on Beth’Haraghan.

“I really like to help, but, you know, I’m just a stupid old Time Lord, you have to explain to me what I should do.”

Instead of an answer, she just tightened her grip.

“Oh, Clara… Clara, Clara, Clara, I wish I were better at this,” he sighed.

“You are very good as this, Doctor,” she said finally, her voice sounding hoarse and low. “You are so caring today, and I’m such an awful person. I don’t deserve a friend like you.”

What did she mean? She wasn’t an awful person. She was his companion. A brilliant companion, brave, smart, resourceful, witty and caring. And he always cared about her, not just today. And what did she mean that she didn’t deserve a friend like him? Was this a good thing? It didn’t sound like a good thing. It sounded bad.

He let his head rest against her small human head and wished he could tell her how wrong she was and how important she was to him. But to do that, he needed to go to the scary place where his emotions were stored.

A Time Lord’s brain was well organized, and every piece of information was readily available, like in a good library. It was easy to look up facts, analyze data and make connections. It was the foundation to develop plans and make decisions.

A Time Lord’s memories were also filed away neatly, like in a good archive, with clear signs not to go towards the terrible ones if he was not prepared. This was not always successful. Sometimes, when he felt weak, certain words, sounds or smells could trigger them. Then, he experienced the events again as if they were real. And when he relaxed too much in a catnap and drifted away to a deep sleep, they caused horrific nightmares.

And finally, there were a Time Lord’s emotions. They were stored deep down in the vaults of his brain. Some Time Lords had locked them away completely. He, however, was well aware that they were there, looming under the surface, always threatening to take over the rational mind. He knew the rage and the hate that sat there, and they were the reason he feared to travel alone. His human companions would remind him of what was good and right, they would keep the hate and rage from overpowering him.

Then, there was love and compassion and he feared those emotions much more than he feared hate and rage. They made him vulnerable. They kept him from making rational decisions when they meant to abandon or kill people he cared for. Love and compassion let him make choices that had terrible consequences later, and this was terrifying. Other than rage and hate his human companions didn’t help to keep love and compassion at bay. On the contrary, they nurtured those emotions and helped them to grow stronger and guide his actions.

And in the end, every human he ever knew would die on him. It always hurt so much. But as a Time Lord he wasn’t allowed to lie down and die with them. It took all his strength to keep going and continue to be the Doctor.

After the terrible losses on Trenzalore he had vowed to himself that his next incarnation would lock away love in the vault.

Completely and forever.

Love should never be able to guide his decisions again.

Only rational, pragmatic decisions from now on.

Without love.

He sealed the dangerous emotion in the deepest, darkest corner of the vault in his brain.

He had sealed it tightly, but it began to leak.

Love came back.

It was only half the truth that he avoided hugging so Clara would not become too attached to him. He feared that he would become too attached to her just as much. If he allowed this to happen, he would suffer again when he lost her. But it was already too late…

A smile on the face of the first face his new face saw had caused the seal to crack.

That very first smile which had been meant exclusively for this incarnation and not for the memory of his previous self.

And through that crack, love was slowly dripping back in.

Making him love things, small things at first, like small animals and flowers.

The longer he travelled with Clara, the more the crack widened, letting more love back into his hearts.

Clara said she was an awful person.

It was awful that love came back, because with love came the pain of grief and loss, but she was not an awful person for causing it.

She was a wonderful person.

When Clara was by his side, he felt secure and brave, as if nothing could harm him.

Everything was less scary when he knew she was running with him.

When she smiled at him, his hearts felt warm.

When she was cross with him, his hearts felt freezing cold.

When she was sad, his hearts felt broken.

He felt incomplete when she wasn’t with him.

As if there were two big holes in his hearts that only she could fill.

Suddenly Clara withdrew herself and stared at him with her teary eyes. Her facial expression was confusing. Scared? Shocked? Could be both. As if she had seen something she didn’t expect and which scared her. Not a monster, though. Something like a species she hadn’t seen before and which was more confusing than terrifying.

“Is this… are these your thoughts, Doctor?”

Oh no, now he realized his mistake. He hadn’t shielded his brain enough when he had leaned his head against hers and his thoughts had leaked. He withdrew his arms and moved away from her.

“I’m sorry. Sorry that this has happened. I told you there was this danger.”

“There are holes in your hearts? Two holes that are shaped like me?”

“Just… just forget it. Telepathy is complicated and things might look different than they were really thought. Like… when google translates something… Even Time Lords have to train for years to be able to read and send thoughts correctly.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked deep into his eyes. He knew that look. It meant that she was searching for an answer and she wouldn’t be satisfied until she got it. On the upside, she didn’t look so disturbed anymore, her natural curiosity creeping back into her eyes, pushing away the sadness. But he feared that look. He feared that he had already accidentally revealed too much of himself.

“It had looked clear enough for me, Doctor. I saw your hearts, and…”

“Clara, you are not a telepath. I just hope that this short burst hasn’t already damaged your brain. Human brains are really fragile. I’m sorry this has happened. Listen, you don’t feel well, and I think you need a rest now. Just sleep it off and I’m sure you will feel a lot better tomorrow. I will go now.”

He stood up and headed for the door.

“Doctor!”

She always had the power to stop him in his tracks just using her voice. But this time it was not the commanding teacher voice. She spoke the name he had given himself soft and low, not a command, but a plea. He slowly turned around.

“Doctor, please stay, stay here, with me,” she continued, “I can see you are scared. What scares you so much about me reading your thoughts?”

“I told you it could damage your brain, Clara.”

“You are a terrible liar and you know that. There’s more to it. I can see it in your eyes.”

She was persistent. He knew that. But that place in the vault, the one with that ever-widening crack was scary, he feared to go there. And he certainly didn’t want to let her see how she made him feel.

Suddenly a thought crossed his mind.

“Clara, some minutes ago you told me that you just can’t talk about what troubles you. Would you accept that my mind is a scary place and I just can’t let you in? And that I can’t talk about it?”

It was shameful to admit it, but it was the truth. He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t share his mind. She looked at him. It seemed like her brown eyes burnt themselves through his eyes, his brain, his hearts, to finally find his soul. Find it, see it, study it. He felt naked and vulnerable under her stare. Not the hero anymore. Here, before her dissecting eyes, stood the small, lonely Gallifreyan boy, the man that had failed to live up to his name and lost whole species and planets, and the wounded old soldier who had fought too long and lost too many. Wishing she would accept him like he was, with all his flaws, shortcomings and fears. Hoping she would understand that right at this moment he was unable to let her see it, but that he cared deeply for her.

There was a long moment of silence between them.

“It’s alright, Doctor,” she finally said, a small smile in the corner of her mouth, “maybe… how about two friends who are both not okay at this moment just sit down here and share some tea and cookies? Because, you know, sometimes, when things are scary and sharing the troubles is too difficult, the company of a friend can help. It’s a safe place that doesn’t need words.”

He breathed relieved, thankful that she offered him an opportunity to escape. He nodded, placed the tray carefully between them, then took his seat on the edge of the bed again. He put seven lumps of sugar in his mug and stirred. When he looked up, he saw her smiling at him.

The sadness in her eyes was still there, but there was something else, too. Something else he didn’t understand, something that was stronger than the sadness. This something made her eyes sparkle. They reminded him of the beautiful clear brown seas in the mountains of Feradartho. One day he should take her there. Show her the yellow mountains, the brown seas, the wide, steep, orange meadows with blue flowers and the little purple otters. He was sure she would enjoy it just as much as he did.

His hearts warmed under her glance and when he smiled back, he felt how the crack in the vault widened once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The crack might have been inspired by the following line in Leonard Cohen's ["Anthem"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wRYjtvIYK0):  
> "There's a crack, a crack in everything - That's how the light gets in."


	5. A Promise

They sat on the bed for a while in silence, just slurping their tea and eating cookies.

“How was your week?” Clara finally asked.

“I’m a Time Lord, Clara, so technically, it wasn’t a week for me. It was centuries if you look at it from one point of the universe and then again, when you look at it from the edges of a black hole…”

“You have been on the edge of a black hole?”

“Yup. ‘Yesterday’, if you insist on having an idea of when it was in linear relation to this moment, although that’s not exactly how it works.”

“But isn’t that too dangerous? When I asked you if we could go to see Sagittarius A* you told me it was too risky, even if we stayed a good length away from it.”

“It is. I would never do that when you are with me.”

She looked at him strangely.

“What did you do there? Save the passengers of a spaceship? Save a planet?”

“Surfing.”

“Surfing?”

“Yes. Just surfing on the edge, moving a little bit into it and a little bit out of it. It makes you feel the time gliding through you, even bending around you a little bit, tickles your senses. It’s fun.”

“That sounds… really dangerous, Doctor!”

He shrugged. Of course, it was. Just a little bit too far in and he would be drawn into it and probably be squashed. He needed to concentrate all his senses and do a lot of calculations to get the point just before he would cross the event horizon exactly right, then turn the TARDIS around at exactly the right angle. But that was kind of the thrill of surfing a black hole. When he had to focus so much, he didn’t need to worry about anything else.

“I mean… if you fear to go even to the proximity of a black hole together with me, surfing it sounds… ridiculously dangerous?”

Clara seemed to dwell on that thought for whatever reason.

“Might be. But you don’t need to worry. I’m only doing that when I’m alone.”

“Doctor! I worry because it sounds very likely that you could get killed doing that.”

Oh, sure. But he wasn’t worried about being killed. Earlier incarnations worried and didn’t want to die. He was indifferent to it. He didn’t fear death. He even found the thought of not having to go on anymore endearing. It sounded peaceful to him. He was surprised that Clara kept on pushing that topic.

“Sure,” he just shrugged, “but that can happen all the time anyway, right? I can’t count the times we were close to it and I doubt you can with that small brain capacity of yours.”

She looked at him slightly cross. But it was not the usual cross.

“Doctor, that’s different! When we are in a dangerous situation it is because we have a job to do, there are people or planets to save and that’s why we take that risk. But that black hole surfing… I don’t know… It sounds like you expose yourself to a fatal risk without a good reason.”

“Isn’t being bored a good reason? It’s fun, and nothing you need to worry about, anyway.” He replied offhandedly. Bored was probably not the right word for it, but he didn’t care.

The wrinkle between her eyes deepened. That usually happened when she became really, really cross, but that strange twinkling in her eyes didn’t happen when she was cross. He wished he was better at reading her.

She raised her hand and he flinched. But she just put it slowly and carefully on his cheek again, like she had done before. Why did she do that? It felt nice, anyway.

“Doctor, of course I need to worry if my best friend puts himself in a fatal danger voluntarily, without having the need to. Do you really think I care about you so little that the thought of you surfing a black hole doesn’t scare me to death?”

If she had slapped him, the impact couldn’t have been greater. She was really scared that something could happen to him. And she considered him her best friend. Not one of the stupid pudding brains she usually spent her time with, no, she had assigned this important title to him. He was important to her. Maybe not as important as she was to him, but important enough that she cared about what happened to him.

He closed his eyes and was unable to process this information. Where did he store it? It was an utterly important one. And it was a memory he needed to preserve forever. And it had something to do with that crack deep in the vault, the one connected to his hearts. For a few moments his brain went into a complete shutdown until he was able to carefully separate information, memory and feeling.

All this time, her thumb softly stroked his cheek. The touch sent goosebumps down his spine because he wasn’t accustomed to any form of touch and tenderness anymore. It scared him, yet, it felt good. Like the first sunbeams and a warm breeze from the sea after the long period of winter on New Rejkward. Part of him wanted to lean into that touch, hoping she wouldn’t stop. Part of him was scared and wanted to run away as quickly as possible.

He hesitantly opened his eyes again to meet her gaze. He saw that her eyes were inflated and there was water in them. Oh no, he had managed to make her cry again. He really had to be careful with what he told her. Especially when she was vulnerable like today. Was there anything he could do to keep her from crying? Maybe…

“You are really scared that I am dumb enough to kill myself doing something stupid, right?” He asked in the softest voice he could manage.

She nodded.

“Can you stop doing that thing with your eyes if I promise you, I will try not getting myself killed unnecessarily?”

“Would you do that? At least promise me that you won’t surf a black hole again?”

He never promised anything. It was his right to do whatever he wanted to do, whenever he wanted to do it. He was not obeying the High Council, any higher power or anyone who thought they were in charge. Yet, that small human being in front of him always held him accountable for his actions and he would do everything to see her happy.

He searched his memories on how to do a promise. There was only the promise he had made to be a Doctor, nothing else. So, he had to improvise this. What did humans do when they promised something? He looked at the information available. Ah, yes, that could work. A bit of a stretch, but he was sure it would make her smile. And it was more like a speech. He was good at speeches.

He reached out to the hand that still touched his cheek and took it into his. He brought it in front of him and cupped it with his other hand. Her hand was incredibly small and fragile, it nearly disappeared in his large hands.

“Clara Oswald, I promise you here and now that I will never surf a black hole again if it is not for saving something or someone from immediate danger. I furthermore promise that I will try not getting myself killed unnecessarily or in a dumb way. I will try to avoid getting myself killed altogether and if I get killed accidentally, I will try to do it in a way that makes you proud of me.”

She smiled at him. And water was running from her eyes. He hated it. Humans were so confusing. They could do several emotions at once and he never knew what to do with it.

She placed her other hand on top of his hand, her smile got broader and there was that sparkle in her eyes again.

“And don’t you dare to get yourself accidentally killed or to regenerate on me, you grey-haired stick-insect of a Time Lord. Do that to whoever comes after me.”

Had she just forbidden him to regenerate? She wanted to keep this version of him? The old one with the attack eyebrows, the Scottish accent, the difficulties to say the right things, the inability to give hugs correctly and the ability to make her cross every time they were together?

He looked into her eyes in disbelief.

He felt something strange. Something he hadn’t felt in years. He wasn’t quite sure, but it seemed to him… yes, he recognized it now… he…

_He was happy_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That surfing a black hole is an utterly dumb idea can be seen in my Alternative Universe [“How Do I Do?”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21606988/chapters/51520711) where Season 8 Twelve does exactly that, makes a mistake and lands in his future to meet Season 10 Twelve.


	6. Artwork for 1st Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [InsideTheTardis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsideTheTardis/pseuds/InsideTheTardis) was nice enough to draw this scene from the first chapter. It’s awesome, thank you very much! :3  
> I’m working on the last prompt (the Doctor reads something to Clara) right now and hope to have an update for you all later today.  
> Stay safe, stay healthy, stay inside!

This is the scene:

"He cleared his throat.

“Well, just because I’m not a hugging person anymore doesn’t mean I can’t…”

He stepped to the side of the bed and sat down near the headboard. He hesitantly patted on his thigh."


	7. Comfort Zone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here we go. The last prompt I tackle is from Christina Mccolley: “Could use a few more "cuddling" chapters...perhaps he decides to read to her!!?” It was the first I received, but the hardest to do, because it is so far out of the comfort zone of a Season 8 Twelve character.  
> I hope you like it. There will be an additional chapter playing the "reading" part out.

“What do you want to do? Go for an adventure?”

The Doctor asked with his brightest smile, hoping Clara would feel better after the tea and they could do something together instead of just sitting and talking.

“Sorry, Doctor, I simply don’t feel well today. I think I just stay in bed. I think it’s the weather.”

He looked outside the window. It was foggy.

“What’s wrong with the weather?”

He loved the London fog. He enjoyed walking the streets when all the forms were smoothed out by it. Houses, streetlights and cars slowly emerged, just to disappear again. He also loved the feeling of the cool, damp air on his skin and the moldy smell.

“It’s cold and damp and gloomy and menacing. I think the sun wasn’t out for over a month now and everything is sad. It’s like someone has taken all the warmth and the joy out of this world.”

He didn’t really understand it. There were a lot of things that made him sad, the stupidity of the human species included, but weather conditions weren’t among them. But she sounded really sad and this was enough to make his hearts clench.

“Then perhaps I’ll take you to a sunny place? Aries 5? Three suns, one more beautiful than the other?”

“Thank you, Doctor, but I really don’t want to go anywhere. You just go out adventuring, it’s okay, really.”

He shrugged and stood up. If she didn’t want to, he could just as well see what this old universe had in store for him.

But something held him back.

He didn’t like to travel alone. And he couldn’t imagine Clara would enjoy staying in bed all day… at least, if she wanted to do that, he couldn’t imagine that she really wanted to be alone if she felt bad. He certainly wouldn’t. He hated to be alone. She had said that it was OKAY if he left, not that she WANTED him to leave, right? Better to ask.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Their eyes met, she held his gaze for a moment, then looked down.

“No,” she admitted.

He stood there, somehow not sure what to do or to say next. What did humans usually do in such cases? What did this human, _his_ human, do when she wasn’t adventuring with him? Or teaching little pudding brains? Or quarrelling with her idiot colleagues?

“Right, then…”

In the absence of knowing what to do, he rubbed his hands, then bit his thumb and started to wander around in her bedroom.

Clara seemed equally insecure about what to do or say next.

“What would you do if I wouldn’t be here?” He finally asked.

“Moping, probably,” she said with a hint of a smile.

“I can do that, too, but it does sound neither interesting nor funny,” the Doctor remarked, looking at the bookshelf in the corner.

“I wonder…” Clara started.

“What?”

“Would you… read something to me?”

“Read something?”

That was an odd suggestion. She could read all by herself; she was teaching English literature after all. As far as he knew you read something to little children who were too young to read.

“Yes? Is this an odd request? Something Time Lords don’t do?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I was just never asked to do that by someone who can read all by himself.”

“Really?”

Now they both looked at each other equally incredulous.

“But that’s one of the nicest things you can do together… if someone reads something to you, you can enjoy the beauty of the writing and dream away to the story of the book and enjoy the company of the one who is reading it to you. It’s magical.”

“Magical? There is no such thing as…”

He stopped himself when he saw the sadness in her eyes again. Maybe pointing out that there was no such thing as magic was not the right thing to do. She probably knew that. He had to take into account that humans often used terms he shouldn’t take literally. Even after over 2,000 years with this species it confused him a great deal. He took a deep breath and started again.

“So, I take it it’s something you enjoy? And it would make you happy if I read something to you?”

“It would,” she nodded.

The Doctor tilted his head and scanned the titles on Clara’s bookshelf. Most of them classics from English literature he had read recently because Clara had mentioned them in her lectures.

“How about this one?”

Clara held up the book she had read when he had returned with the tea. He found it still odd that she would like to listen to something that she already read herself.

He looked at the title. “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelly. Oh yes, he remembered that one. He liked it. A compelling story, including a mad scientist and his misunderstood creature. He always wanted to visit Shelly one day, perhaps on that evening at the Villa Diodati… Ah, well, he really should make a list of those places he wanted to visit, he always lost track.

He quickly checked his brain to see how to do a professional book reading, then took the book from Clara and flipped to the beginning.

“To Mrs Saville, England…” he began.

“Uhm… you really want to do that standing upright?”

“I… I don’t know how you humans do that reading to someone thing usually. I saw people on TV reading from books and they were standing, so I assumed…”

“Well, usually this should be an enjoyable activity for both reader and listener, why don’t you make yourself comfortable, Doctor? There is enough space on this bed for both of us.”

She moved a little and patted on the space beside her.

Making himself comfortable? Oh, well, he was all but comfortable with this whole situation. He would have been much more comfortable with fighting monsters. At least he had some ideas how to do that. Making himself comfortable on a bed together with Clara? Somehow this idea scared him. He tried to concentrate. Well, he could perhaps just sit there and lean his back against the headboard.

“You probably should take off your shoes first, Doctor,” Clara remarked.

That sounded reasonable. He took off his shoes and placed them carefully and accurately aligned under the bed. Then he sat down.

“What about the coat?” Clara asked.

“What about it?”

“Don’t you want to take it off? Isn’t it inconvenient? Don’t you feel hot in it? I mean, you can say many things about this flat, but the heating works.”

He stiffened. Taking off his coat? He always had been obsessed with his clothes, no matter which incarnation. They were his protection against the outside world. If they were complete, he felt strong and prepared to beat his enemies. It had been worst when he was that fellow with the frilled shirt. Back then he had even run back to fetch his cape before he went outside to fight the villains. The idea of taking off his coat disturbed him.

“It’s alright, Doctor, I understand, just keep it on if you feel safer this way,” Clara suddenly said.

He stared at her in shock. Sometimes it was hard to believe Clara wasn’t telepathic.

“How do you know?” He asked appalled.

“Oh, I’m the same,” she said with a hint of a smile in the corner of her mouth.

“Really?”

He couldn’t believe it. She always seemed so confident and sure of herself that it never occurred to him she could feel vulnerable, too.

“Oh yes, I have a variety of clothes that make me feel safe and more confident. There are the ones I wear when I’m just out adventuring with you, fighting monsters and then, there are the special protective suits I wear when I have the class with Courtney Woods.”

For a moment they just looked at each other. Then, the corners of Clara’s mouth started twitching and she began to giggle. He joined in and soon they laughed together at the fact that fighting monsters was far less scary than teaching a class of 15-year-olds.

When they finally could stop laughing, he had come to a decision. When he fixed his TARDIS, he always took off his coat. So, he figured, when reading something was a way to help Clara, this was pretty much the same. It was safe to take it off for this task.

He stood up and carefully took off his coat. He placed it painstakingly accurate on the back of a chair next to the window. When he turned around, he saw that she smiled fondly at him and there was that sparkling in her eyes again. He smiled back.

He sat down on the bed, rested his back against the headrest and let his long legs swing to the bed. Clara giggled.

“What’s so funny now?” He asked surprised.

“You are really wearing those grumpy cat socks?”

He looked down to his feet which were covered with socks showing the face of grumpy cat alternating with donuts.

“Of course, I’m wearing them,” he confirmed, “they are my Wednesday socks. They are warm and comfy. And they were a present from you. I always wear them when I come here.”

“That’s very sweet, Doctor, I had no idea you really liked them,” Clara said.

Then she took a deep breath and asked:

“Would it be okay if I rest my head on your thigh again? That was nice.”

Somehow humans seemed to need close contact. It hadn’t felt bad last time. It felt funny and pleasant, the weight and the warmth of her body so close. And she smelled good.

“Yes,” he simply said, and his small human companion crawled near and cuddled herself close to him, her head resting firmly on his thigh and against his belly.

She looked up to him and frowned.

“Brace yourself, I’m going to unbutton that first shirt button because it looks as if this is terribly uncomfortable.”

She reached up to his throat and did exactly that. And really, it felt much better that way. Much easier to breath and look down into her beautiful brown eyes.

And there was something about that gesture, maybe the fact that she realized the collar restrained him, maybe the way she warned him, so he wasn’t frightened by her hand suddenly reaching up, maybe the careful way she opened that button, maybe all of it together, that caused the crack deep down in the vault of his emotions to widen once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still something (SFW) missing in this?   
> Comment below or on twitter @StrangeSeaWolf


	8. Reading

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to give Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" a re-read when I saw the announcements of "The Haunting of Villa Diodati", in case you wonder why I chose this book. ;)  
> If you want to have the voice of the Doctor in your head when he's reading, hop over to [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpmudStvGAI) and hear Peter Capaldi reading a bit from "Runaway Robot" by Frank Cottrell-Boyce.

“It was on a dreary night of November…”

Clara had begged him to skip forward to chapter 5. He started reading aloud, something he had not done in a long time. It took a few lines until he found the right voice, the one he had used so long ago when he read bedtime stories to his daughter.

“…His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness;”

Here, he accentuated the “th” and “ss”, baring his own teeth.

“…but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast…”

He let the “horrid” holler in a menacing way.

“…with his watery eyes, that seemed almost the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips.”

He didn’t know if this was the right thing to do, so he looked down to his human companion resting on his lap. She had closed her eyes, which he found odd. Maybe he did it wrong?

Now, she opened her eyes.

“Why did you stop?”

“I… Am I doing this right? Why do you close your eyes?”

“I close my eyes so I can see the story in my head.”

“You can see the story in your head? What do you mean? Like… a movie?”

“Exactly like that.”

Maybe human brains were much more interesting than he had anticipated. This sounded nice.

“You are doing this great, Doctor. You have a beautiful voice for reading.”

She liked how he did it. He felt heat crawling up to his cheeks and his ears.

Suddenly she frowned.

“Is it different for you? You don’t see what happens when someone is reading something to you, Doctor?”

“No,” he shook his head. He could only vaguely imagine how it would look like if his brain worked this way. No, wrong. He couldn’t imagine it at all.

“How does it work for you, Doctor?”

Her eyes sparkled with curiosity. This looked much more like the Clara he knew. Not the sad one who didn’t want to leave her bed. The curious, exploring one. He was relieved to notice it.

“That’s a good question. But difficult to explain… And I think everything someone has ever read to me were instruction manuals and other technical things. So, it’s hard to tell how my brain processes fiction when it’s read to me…”

“Wait… have your parents never read anything to you when you were a child?”

He stiffened and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to be reminded of his childhood. It was a closed down section in his memories with lots of warnings not to go there. He just shook his head.

“It’s alright, Doctor, I’m sorry!”

Clara said, softly putting a hand on his arm.

What was she sorry for? She had done nothing wrong. Humans were confusing.

“How about I read a bit to you so you can experience it and then tell me how you perceive it?”

Yes, this sounded much more like his always curious, always eager and inquisitive companion. He handed her the book and she started reading the next paragraph.

The hero of the book, Frankenstein, was obviously overworked, had messed up and now was suffering from nightmares. He sure could relate to that. Well, he himself had never tried to cobble together a creature from body parts, but he had messed with time and the universe, so he knew how menacing it could be to be confronted with the consequences.

Suddenly Clara stopped reading.

“I don’t think it works that way,” Clara said.

“It doesn’t?” He asked surprised.

“No. First, you try to read the book for yourself along with me reading it out loud, even trying to skip ahead, although that must be pretty inconvenient from the angle you are trying to do that. And then, you are all but relaxed. Your whole body is tense. You can’t let go and get yourself immersed into a story if you are stiff as a poker.”

“So, I take it this reading to me thing doesn’t work at all on Time Lords?”

“I wouldn’t say that. It’s just… you are not relaxed and that’s kind of the point that makes this enjoyable and refreshing. “

“Relax? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, how do you relax when you are going to sleep?”

“I don’t go to sleep. I catnap during conversations.”

“Don’t be silly, of course you sleep. I know that you need sleep, even if it is not as much as humans do. Don’t forget your face is not the first face of a Doctor I see.”

Of course, he did sleep. Nodded off, more likely. But he always tried to do that sitting upright in a chair or leaning against something so the sleep wouldn’t become too deep. If he just slept lightly, he could keep the nightmares at bay. If they hit, he could wake up quickly. The few times he drifted off to a deep sleep it had carried him into more profound nightmares, putting him back to the Time War or to Trenzalore, reliving horrible atrocities, confronting him with his terrible mistakes and wrong decisions. He struggled waking up from them. They always left him disturbed and he didn’t function properly for hours afterwards.

Nothing he would tell Clara, anyway. She didn’t feel well today, and he wanted to care for her properly. At least as good he could manage as a non-human being. So, he just shrugged.

“You want to see me happy, right?” She asked him with her big, curious eyes.

“Of course!” He nodded.

“So how about this: We reverse positions? You rest on my lap while I read you something?”

He looked at her in shock. Rest on her lap? He had just adjusted to feeling her so close, resting her head on his lap. It was still a position in which he felt in control of things, in which he was relatively sure he could avoid accidental telepathic bonding. Reversing this position felt threatening. He needed to be in control of everything in this incarnation, probably the aftermath of being under enemy attack for hundreds of years in his previous life. His whole body kicked into panic mode; his hearts started racing.

“It’s okay, Doctor. Don’t worry, it was just a suggestion. I wanted you to get more comfortable and relaxed, not the opposite.”

He was surprised. And ashamed. She had read him. Of course, she had read him. He started to be an open book for her while he struggled with getting simple human things right.

“How about that: I sit up against the headboard and you lie down beside me and try to relax a bit. I promise not to touch you.”

Now, _that_ was a difference from her usual attempt to force him into a hug if she wanted to. Sure, with time he had understood that it was her way of showing him she liked him or that she wasn’t cross with him anymore. Recently, he even started to enjoy those hugs secretly, especially when they meant that she had forgiven him whatever he had done wrong. Still, that she promised she wouldn’t touch him made him feel… for the lack of better words… respected.

She lifted her head and crawled towards the headboard. He instantly missed her warmth. She handed him a pillow and he slowly let himself slide down and rested his head on it.

“Better? Comfortable?” She asked, smiling down at him.

He nodded, although he still felt a bit awkward. He folded his arms across his chest which always gave him a feeling of security.

“Now close your eyes while I continue reading. I would really be interested in how you experience it.”

“I will keep you posted.”

“Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance…” she continued the story.

He closed his eyes and listened. Her voice was strong and confident, years of practice in reading books to children and students had clearly shaped it. But it was also melodious and gentle. It sounded like a soft warm breeze over a heathland on a spring day. He associated it with purple velvet and the taste of hot chocolate.

His brain carefully extracted the information from what she read, noted the symptoms and speculated about the illness as Clerval took care of his friend Frankenstein. Another part of his brain carefully stored away the memory of him lying next to Clara and listening to her voice. But deep down in the vault of his brain, something processed the story of a weary man and his friend who took care of him and slowly helped him to heal.

The way Clara always took care of him.

The way he hoped he took care of Clara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a friend who experiences a lot of things very different from me. They don't see pictures in their head when they imagine something, for example. If someone says "apple" they don't see an apple but the concept of an apple, the apple-ness. I'm a highly visiual type so I struggle with how it works for them and vice-versa. It's kind of hilarious to discover those differences. I think the Doctor's mind is something completely different, but I was inspired by this real world example.


	9. An Invitation to a Time Lord's Brain

„How is this working for you, Doctor?”

Clara asked when she had finished the chapter.

The Doctor looked up and met her eyes. Her curious eyes, wanting to know, wanting to learn, wanting to understand. There was no hint of sadness in them anymore. He was relieved. He felt sad when she was sad and now, seeing her curious again, he could do what he loved doing: explaining things to her, showing her around, maybe showing off a little.

He wanted to grab his coat lapels, something he loved doing when holding a lecture ever since his first incarnation. He realized he didn’t wear his coat. So, he interlocked his fingers and twiddled his thumbs as he started:

“A Time Lord’s brain is a curious thing. Very well organized and very tidy, compared to the messy brain of you little humans.”

“Doctor! As if! I don’t believe a word of that!” Clara snorted.

“What?” He asked, taken aback by her sudden outbreak of… he tried to read her face… corners of the mouth upwards, wrinkles around her eyes, eyes twinkling… amusement. What he had said amused her. That was good. Amused was good. It was a positive thing, even if she made fun of him.

“You have seven, I repeat _seven_ , spare keys for your TARDIS in different hiding places because you don’t trust yourself to remember where you put your key. And you try to tell me that your brain is well organized.”

“It’s because I use my brain only to store away _important_ information, Clara! Not like you pudding brains who burden them with unimportant information like birth dates of TV celebrities or story plots from stupid science fiction series.”

“How is knowing where your TARDIS key is an unimportant information?”

“It is because you always know where I have put it.”

“You lazy brat!”

Clara exclaimed and nudged his arm, more a caress than a slap. He grinned up to her. Deep inside he felt happy. Happy to hear her bantering with him again. He recognized it as a good sign. She always was bantering with him when she was no longer cross with him. So, it probably meant she was feeling better.

“But seriously, Doctor, I can’t picture your brain being organized and tidy. I can’t picture a brain altogether to be honest, may it be tidy or messy. I know how a human brain looks as an organ and I know what my brain does, but I can’t picture how a brain looks and works.”

“Shall I show you?”

He asked, taking himself by surprise. He had spoken before he had thought about it, something that nearly never happened. He was such a quick thinker that usually he had thought about all possible outcomes and consequences and alternative solutions before he spoke, even if it looked like a spontaneous reply to his partners.

“Ooooh… you can show me?” Clara said, her eyes inflating with excitement.

Well, yes, he could… It was one of the first assignments when they taught telepathy at the academy. Taking a snapshot of another student’s brain. The trick was that while it was establishing a telepathic connection it did nothing more than showing the partner a part of the brain. No dimensions, no time and no additional information involved. It was like learning the first letters of the alphabet. An easy task that he should be able to perform without putting Clara at risk, no matter how bad he was at managing his telepathic abilities.

But wait, humans weren’t a telepathic species. He wasn’t sure if it would work this way around. He could take a snapshot of Clara’s brain easily, but could he show her a snapshot of his brain?

“I… I’m not completely sure, to be honest. I forgot that you are not telepathic. ”

“But we could try? I mean, I did see those holes in your heart when we accidentally bonded, so probably I am telepathic to some extend?”

“Yes, perhaps, if I establish the link, I could invite you over… I’m not sure… could be risky…”

“Since when is risky something that holds you back, Black Hole Beach Boy?”

She grinned her roguish grin, the one that never failed to make him grin all over his face and do whatever foolish thing she just had decided to do together with him, pushing aside all doubts.

“Okay… the easiest way to connect is if our foreheads touch. It’s the closest two brains can get for most species,” he explained.

He was at a loss how to do this lying in a bed… it wasn’t the usual position. Usually he would be standing. Should he ask Clara to stand up?

But she had already lowered herself beside him, so he rolled to his side, facing her. It felt strange. Scary. But not too scary. He didn’t feel the urge to run away.

“I’m establishing the link now. I will try not to read your mind. I don’t know if this will work, but once I have established it, I will try to invite your spirit over. I have never done this with a human being before, so I don’t know what happens. If you feel in any way uncomfortable or if it hurts, we break the bond immediately. Just withdraw your head and it should end. Okay?”

She nodded and closed her eyes. She trusted him. He wondered why. He sometimes didn’t trust himself. Yet, she trusted him that he would take care of her. It was a great honor. He hoped he wouldn’t betray her trust.

He softly rested his forehead against hers.

He placed the fingers of his left hand on her temple.

He immediately saw her mind, the typical messy place of a human mind with all this wild cluttering of information, memories and emotions. It was messy, but it allowed this species to be creative and adapt to whatever hostile and changing environment they were confronted with. He adored humans for this trait. Of course, this mess of a brain also led to the most terrible atrocities this universe had seen.

He remembered his promise and averted his thoughts so he wouldn’t accidentally read something Clara didn’t want him to see.

Instead he searched for that part of her mind that would be able to see his own mind and perhaps, with some training, would even be able to read his thoughts.

He found it. It was different than that of a Time Lord, he had expected that much. But it was not as small and weak as he had expected it to be with a non-telepathic species.

It was strong.

And confident.

And compassionate.

And brave.

And determined.

It was the essence of Clara. It was the essential Clara-ness. Her spirit. It radiated a warmth and affection that immediately resonated with both his hearts.

He was amazed and contemplated to break the bond because he had expected a much weaker spirit to guide.

But Clara’s spirit disagreed.

Of course, he thought, with a trace of amusement, how could he have expected that Clara’s spirit was any less willing to talk back than her physical self.

_“Right, how could you even assume that?”_

_“Cl… Clara?”_

_“Seems like it. Is this telepathic communication?”_

Her… her spirit’s voice. Like a true telepath.

_“Yes… but you shouldn’t… this shouldn’t be possible… as far as I know, at least.”_

He felt a mental shrug from her spirit.

This was different. Different than anything he had learned at the academy. And it felt wrong to treat her like a student or an inferior species. The more he thought about it, the more he found the whole way telepathy was taught at the academy was wrong. The assumption that other species were inferior and weak was wrong, even when it came to telepathy. Perhaps more species were telepathic than the Time Lords assumed, maybe they just hadn’t discovered this skill and lacked training.

_“Of course, it’s always wrong to assume someone else is inferior, right? Superior Time Lord!”_

Of course. No way to conceal his thoughts, now that he had stepped into her brain. With a spirit that strong, she could read them if she wanted to. He just avoided to look at her thoughts. If she read his, it was her decision and there was nothing he could do about it. It was a rather awkward situation to be in.

He felt that his thoughts amused her.

_“Now, what about that tour to your brain you promised me?”_

Of course, she would insist. His little, curious, confident control freak.

_“Oi, I’m not a control freak.”_

_“Oh yes, you are!”_

_“Well, takes one to know one!”_

Amazing. She was even able to banter with him telepathically.

Somehow, this made him feel less nervous and more confident about this bonding. Clara was still his Clara, his companion and best friend. There was nothing to fear about showing her a snapshot of his brain.

It just felt wrong to grab her and drag her over as if he was communicating with a fellow teenage student during a telepathy lesson. Instead he felt the need to ask her as politely as it would be appropriate when inviting a fellow Time Lord or Time Lady to share some parts of themselves.

He straightened himself mentally.

_“Would you grant me the pleasure to invite you and would you be willing to bless my humble brain with your presence?”_

He asked with the mental equivalent of a graceful bow.

He felt an amusement, close to a mental giggle from Clara’s spirit.

_“That sounds pretty formal, Doctor!”_

_“Well, it is. And it’s the only respectful way to invite another spirit to one’s brain.”_

_“I will come with you to wherever you want me to, may it be into a Dalek, into a dessert* or into your brain and you should very well know that by now, Doctor!”_

Her spirit answered, much less formal and graceful, but the complete trust and affection conveyed within this answer warmed his hearts.

He gently touched her spirit and guided it to his brain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * = Right, I _intended_ to say "desert" here. But tounknowndestinations pointed out that going into a "dessert" is a hilarious thought that immediately prompted "an image of them sliding a floating island or climbing a millefeuille". And: heck, yeah! I keep it in there because we all can see Twelve in an adventure on a dessert planet, right? I even wrote that adventure here, finally revealing why the Doctor hates pears: <https://archiveofourown.org/works/23356237/chapters/56572315>


	10. Snapshots and Sketchbooks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I finally have tackled all prompts, I thought it would be fun to explore a Time Lord’s mind and telepathy a bit more. Apologies if this appears to be a bit strange. I think exploring a mind is a strange experience. And beautiful. To me, it’s beautiful.

The Doctor gently guided Clara’s spirit over into his brain. It had been a long time since he had done this. Never in this incarnation. Once he had discovered how hard it was for this self to use his telepathic abilities, he had only used them scarcely. He hoped he wouldn’t mess this up.

At least here, in his own brain, he had control again. It was his decision what Clara could see and what not. Just a snapshot of his brain, nothing more. This should be bearable for her human brain and wouldn’t reveal anything he didn’t want to be revealed.

A snapshot of the brain worked like a diorama in a museum: it was just a representation, you could look at it, but you couldn’t step into it to actually explore anything.

 _“This is the part where the information is stored. If you read a story to me, every information goes here. The plot will be one volume, you can see it down there,”_ he pointed to the specific place where the story of Frankenstein was stored. _“Other parts of the information go to the place where I have already stored something about that. When you read to me about the symptoms of Frankenstein, some of them went right up there, the volume that reads “depression”.”_ He pointed upwards.

 _“Wow, all those leather-bound books with golden letters are simply beautiful! There must be billions of books in here!”_ Clara exclaimed.

_“Is this how it looks to you? You know, your mind tries to make sense of what I show you, so it searches for a representation from your world to make you understand. If it is leather-bound books that sounds beautiful. It feels like a library to me, too.”_

_“How do you see it?”_

_“I don’t see it like that, Clara. I… it’s more like I… sense it… have a concept of it… I know which information is where, but I don’t have an image of a library or books or something. It’s… it’s just very different from your brain. But it’s definitely the concept of a library for me, too.”_

_“What’s this?”_

Clara’s inquisitive spirit wanted to explore a separate part of the information section that had a very prominent spot in his mind. He was reluctant to go there, but then, he liked the feeling of showing her something new she hadn’t seen before.

It wasn’t really dangerous, was it?

 _“These look like sketches?”_

He had to break from the snapshot setting to a setting with more dimensions. Well, as long as it was just this place, it wouldn’t be too dangerous. It was still a very small part of his brain.

He carefully let go of her spirit and opened up the dimension in this area. He loved that place in his mind. It was a very comfortable spot to dwell, he spent hours in here.

_“It’s something like… yes, it’s like a workshop…,” he explained, “it’s the place where I try to figure things out. Not the things that need to be made urgently like escape plans or calculations of speed. That’s in the emergency control room in another part of my mind. This here is the place for the things I want to figure out in the long run… it’s not a finished information, it is work in progress.”_

He carefully took up and opened one of his current sketchbooks. He always called the projects he worked on “sketchbooks” because to him they felt that way. He unfolded the multidimensional study.

_“Wow, this is beautiful, Doctor! This looks like… Well, there are multiple sketches of facial expressions, eyes, eyebrows, mouths… but it’s also like a map… but not just two dimensions… more… the sketches seem to be linked to another and there is a lot of Gallifreyan writing in there. What is it?”_

_“Oh, you noticed the Gallifreyan?”_ He couldn’t tell why, but he felt flattered that she recognized it. _“This is my most important sketchbook at the moment. You know I have difficulties with understanding humans because I can’t read human facial expressions…”_

_“Yes, that can be annoying at times.”_

He felt that her spirit wasn’t really annoyed. He felt that it was stated as a fact and it didn’t come with a negative emotion. She was still interested, eager to see and learn.

_“Right. In former incarnations I was rather indifferent to it. It just didn’t matter to me. But I told you that I made many mistakes in my past and I try to correct some of them. So, with this incarnation I started this. I take notes: which facial expression means which emotion? They look like sketches to you?”_

_“They do!”_

_“Yes, to me, too. It also feels like sketching, doing that. Because I try to cover what’s essential about the expression. You know, no unimportant information. I try to capture the exact arching of the eyebrow here and exactly how the mouth wrinkles here, and then, when I connect them, I get the correct emotion.”_

_“Ah, like a chart or something?”_

_“Yes. That’s the great thing about multidimensional studies. You can link several layers of information. Here, if I connect that eyebrow and this mouth and this wrinkle of the nose, I know that this human is annoyed.”_

_“That’s clever, Doctor!”_

He liked when she complimented him, it made him feel a little proud of himself.

She still admired the unfolded study, looking at it from different angles.

_“Doctor, why do all these expressions and parts of faces look like me? Is this also something my brain does?”_

_“No, it’s just… I started with you because you are the first face my new face saw and so your facial expressions are the most important for me to learn. I think that when I have figured you out, it will be applicable to other humans.”_

He felt embarrassment from her spirit. Why was she embarrassed by his explanation? It was simple like that. Understanding her better mattered a lot to him. More than most other things.

_“I had no idea it mattered so much to you, Doctor.”_

_“Oh, it does, it does… still, I’m far from having figured it out. I draw your expressions whenever I notice something new. And I redraw old ones, a lot. But still, more often than not, I get it wrong.”_

He sighed mentally. She didn’t seem to notice.

_“It’s why you hate it when I’m happy and sad at the same time?”_

_“I don’t hate it; it just confuses me. Because when I try to draw the link between these eyebrow expressions… and these eyes… and that mouth… See, it doesn’t align, it doesn’t connect, it’s happy and sad at the same time, it’s confusing.”_

_“Maybe… maybe because you have an incomplete set of feelings and emotions, you know?”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“You say you try to match the facial expressions to understand human beings. You covered ‘annoyed’ there…”_

She matched a few facial expressions and the Gallifreyan word for “annoyed” appeared. He had no idea her spirit could do that. Maybe having showed her this was more dangerous than he had anticipated.

 _“See, Doctor, and if I use this… and that… and this…”_ she tapped the expressions he had used earlier and who had ended up with no matching term, _“For me it is absolutely obvious that this person is happy for being together with someone, but at the same time sad, because she knows she has to let this person go. You know, like being together with a friend but at the same time knowing they will go on a long journey and you won’t see them for quite some time…”_

His hearts clenched. He knew this feeling exactly. Had known it all his life, throughout all incarnations. It was a constant companion to him, his general mood.

It hurt.

It hurt terribly.

Clara’s spirit didn’t seem to notice how hard her explanation had hit him, because she continued:

_“…I know this emotion, although it is hard to label it, maybe I would call it ‘bittersweet’. But I don’t need a term, because I know the concept. I think maybe there are not enough Gallifreyan concepts in your… sketchbook… that match with the range of human emotions. Maybe it is because your species doesn’t have this specific concept, this emotion at all.”_

Oh, how he wished he wouldn’t know it.

He had hoped it would go away when he sealed that part of the vault, but the crack, the terrible crack…

_“What crack, Doctor?”_

_“Doesn’t matter, Clara.”_

Something else mattered, he just realized it. While he could sense all emotions from the assertive, excited, curious spirit beside him, she couldn’t sense his. She could read his thoughts but not the emotions that went with them. Here, in telepathy, the inability of reading the other was reversed. Here, inside his mind, she had the same difficulties he experienced in the human world.

_“But I’m sure I can learn it, just like you!”_

Right, she still could read his thoughts.

_“I’m sure you can, Clara Oswald. I’m absolutely convinced you will.”_

He replied fondly, for once glad she didn’t sense the full extent of his emotions towards her.


	11. An Archive of Memories

_„I think that was enough sneak peek at a Time Lord’s brain for today, Clara Oswald.”_

He said, allowing his caring emotions to flow freely around the small spirit, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to sense them and scold him for it.

He carefully closed the dimension of his workshop again.

However, he had underestimated the adventurous spirit of his companion. She was already on the edge to the place where his memories were stored.

_“There’s another part. What’s that?”_

_“Ah, not today, maybe tomorrow.”_

Her spirit felt disappointed.

_“Okay… what is it?”_

_“Memories.”_

_“All your memories are behind this?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Just a quick look!”_

He smiled. He didn’t know if he was smiling on the outside, too, but his whole mind smiled warmly at his mulish, nosey, pushy companion.

 _“You are quite a nuisance,”_ he answered, glad she couldn’t sense the fondness that came with the scolding.

 _“I know,”_ her spirit did the equivalent of a small giggle, _“can we, Doctor? Just one look?”_

_“You are impossible!”_

He answered with a sigh as he opened the area of his memories for a snapshot.

 _“Wow, that’s_ huge _, Doctor!”_

He knew this space was much larger than the information section. Of course, because he lived for so long and knew so many people. He was curious how Clara would experience it.

 _“What do you see?”_ He asked.

_“There are shelves, aisles with shelves. And there are billions of boxes sitting on these shelves. What are they, Doctor? It looks like an infinite archive!”_

_“Yes, it feels like an archive to me, too. The both sides are always interlinked… what you see as aisles. On the one side you will have the events I remember and on the other side are the people associated with it. Not every single one of them, but those I want or need to remember. Friends, enemies, companions…”_

_“What are the red markings?”_

_“Red markings? Oh, I’m sure that’s how the warning signs appear for you. These are terrible memories. The ‘markings’ remind me not to go there if I’m in a bad mood already.”_

_“You also feel depressed sometimes?”_

_“Of course, I do.”_

He was surprised she hadn’t recognized how crestfallen and disheartened he felt sometimes. Perhaps because he always tried to hide it from her? Perhaps because he usually just landed near her and immediately felt better as soon as he saw her, no matter how fiercely she scolded him for showing up on the wrong day and in the wrong place?

_“You do? You come to me if you don’t feel well?”_

He felt a wave of incredulity and deep affection from her. Right, she could still read his thoughts if he didn't shield them.

_“Of course, I do.”_

He couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized that fact. He was stealthy enough, it seems.

_“You don’t have to, you know, you can tell me what troubles you and I listen.”_

_“Maybe I come to you because I don’t want to talk about it?”_

He grinned internally when he read that she thought that it was stupid and toxic, but that she was probably not in a good place to argue, often hiding her own feelings and moods from him.

_“Exactly!”_

_“This telepathy thing is really confusing. Oi, you promised not to read my thoughts!”_

_“Sorry, I was distracted, won’t happen again. No, I promise I won’t do that again!”_

He felt guilty and changed topic.

_“I’m surprised that you are still not tired, actually. I remember I was really exhausted after the first telepathic lesson.”_

_“I think it’s just too exciting, Doctor!”_

He loved to hear her telepathic giggling. He always loved her giggling, but her mental giggling was even more awesome. He felt the crack widening again. He thought that he really needed to do something about that before things were getting out of hand.

_“What crack?”_

_“Doesn’t matter, Clara. Have you seen enough now?”_

_“Can we have a look at a memory? Just one?”_

_“I… don’t know…”_

He slowly moved along the spaces, or “aisles” like Clara had put it and scanned them. There were so many warnings. He tried to avoid reading the names of the people on the “boxes”. Were there some safe memories he could show her? Something that would make her happy? Well, maybe…

He went to the most recent part and opened the dimension to get access to it. He took out one memory and entered it.

_“See, that’s us, lying in your bed and you are reading the novel to me. But you see that you are not in it, it’s just the memory of the event. Now, there’s a link to this side of the ‘aisle’ how you see it. And if I take out this, entitled ‘Clara’, I get…”_

He interlinked both.

_“Oh, wow, that’s strange. I see it like a movie clip of that scene!”_

_“Really? That sounds awesome!”_

_“How is this looking for you, Doctor?”_

_“Well, I relive that scene when I do that. The way the room smelled, the way your bed felt underneath my back, the way I felt, you know… like it is happening again.”_

_“Ah. I can’t even imagine… but I think that’s why the warning signs are important. It’s because you relive those memories, as vivid as if the events happen again.”_

_“Yes, yes, I think that’s true.”_

He never had thought about it. She was really smart.

_“Ah, you would never say that out loud, right? Not even in telepathic communication!”_

_“I don’t need to; you are already too smug for your own good!”_

_“Am I, already?”_

She said, and he felt both that he hurt her but also that she loved to tease him and banter with him because he was an equal sparring partner.

_“Besides, it isn’t true!”_

He put back the reading memory and took out another memory from earlier that day. He accessed it. They sat on Clara’s bed, a tray with tea and cookies between them.

* * *

“That nearly looks like Gallifreyan writing, Doctor.”

“Yes, it is!”

Him, grinning at her.

“You are very smart for noticing it.”

Him, booping her nose.

Clara, looking at his finger, giggling.

“Doctor!”

“What?”

* * *

_“See? I do say it out loud!”_

_“Do you preserve everything that ever happens in your memory?”_

He felt her surprise.

_“No, of course not, even a Time Lord’s brain has its limits when it comes to capacity. I preserve just the important things.”_

_“Eating cookies and drinking tea with me is an important memory?”_

_“Of course, it is! It’s rare and valuable and beautiful. I fight millions of battles and stop billions of monsters between Wednesdays, that’s the routine. That’s my normal. The few rare occasions where we do something like that together I want to preserve for eternity. I think this whole 'aisle’ contains similar memories.”_

He felt that she was touched and a bit embarrassed by these words. And that she even felt guilty, something he didn’t understand at all. There was nothing to feel guilty about.

He softly stroked the memory as he closed it and put it back to its place, closing the dimension again.

_“What are the empty shelves?”_

Clara asked suddenly.

He sighed. He had hoped she wouldn’t see it in her version, but of course, she saw them, too. The terrible emptiness. The gaps that caused even more pain than the places with the warning signs.

_“Memory wipes.”_

_“Those parts of your memories have been erased?”_

He couldn’t bring himself to say or even think something. Instead, the empty spaces screamed at him.

_“Why are there whole aisles of completely empty shelves but then there are aisles where just one side is empty?”_

Clara asked, not realizing the agony just looking at those places caused him. He tried to gather his composure. He took the mental equivalent of a deep breath.

_“There are complete memory wipes, I think that’s easy to understand. Those events are gone forever, with everything that was involved. I can only tell there was something because of the gaps I see.”_

A nod from her side. Curious. Still not realizing how painful it was for him.

_“Then, there are really sloppy done memory wipes. They erase the events but fail to erase the people involved. I still remember the smiles and the frowns and the voices of some important people although I can’t recall the events associated with it.”_

_“Like an old photo album. You were not alive when the events took place, like the wedding of your grandparents. But you remember your grandparents when they were older and imagine how they were when they were younger when you look at those pictures.”_

_“Yes, exactly. That’s a smart comparison… See, I do say it out loud!”_

He felt her spirit giggle again. That giggle alone was worth complimenting her.

_“And when it’s the other way round? It’s when… the people are missing?”_

The pain burnt his hearts. He felt like running away, breaking the bond. But he had already gone this far. And he wanted her to understand him… what he was, why he was like he was, how it felt being like him, why he did what he did… He forced himself to show her.

He needed a shared memory. Something he was sure she would remember, too.

He went back and came up with the memory of his regeneration.

He opened it but without establishing the link to the ‘Clara’ side of the events.

He relived it, he felt the pain of leaving his old self behind, he felt the regeneration energy burning through his body, changing every single cell in his body, brutally, mercilessly, pounding, ripping his old self apart. Then, opening his new eyes, he stared into a void. Instead of finding her eyes that looked at him in horror and fear but at the same time provided an anchor for him, something real, something alive, something just THERE and TOGETHER with him, there was nothing.

No hope.

No comfort.

Just the sheer horror of having become a new man who was strange and awkward and lost.

Falling.

Alone.

All by himself.

Without a companion by his side.

_“That’s strange. I know I have been there, but when I watch this movie from your memories now, it is like I wasn’t there at all!”_

He couldn’t speak or think. He was paralyzed by his own memories.

Suddenly, he saw her brown eyes again, looking up to him and he quickly asked her if she knew how to fly this thing.

When he was fully aware of the situation again, he also saw what had happened. Clara had established the link to the memory of herself during regeneration. He was thankful for it and surprised that she was able to do that. Had she learned how to sense his emotions by now?

_“Unfortunately, not. But you stopped talking and thinking completely for a while and that told me something was wrong. You told me that you are reliving those events and so I thought I’d try if establishing the link would snap you out of the flashback.”_

_“Thank you!”_

He said, surrounding her spirit with the equivalent of a hug.

_“You are welcome, Doctor. Is that hugging in telepathy?”_

_“It is. Don’t mention it later,”_ he allowed himself a short mental giggle.

_“It feels nice.”_

_“I’m probably better in hugging telepathically than in real life.”_

_“I like both. Secretly, you are a hugger, Doctor.”_

He said nothing.

And shielded his thoughts.

He was glad she wasn’t able to feel his emotions.

Because now.

Right now.

Having experienced again how important she was to him.

How she was stepping up, doing impossible things.

How she was always there when he needed her.

How she was his anchor.

He was unable to deny it any longer.

He had to admit it to himself.

**_He loved her._ **


	12. The Vault

When he had his feelings and thoughts under control once again, he realized that her spirit was no longer next to him. Adventurous as ever, Clara had left his side, using his short moment of inattention and the fact that the dimension to the archive of his memories was unlocked to go and explore further all by herself.

He cursed himself for letting it happen.

Exactly the reason why he locked this particular emotion away in the first place.

It impaired his ability to concentrate.

Well, one of the many reasons.

_“Clara!”_

He tried not to shout it in panic.

He realized he was in panic in telepathy.

This had never happened to him before.

_“Clara!”_

He tried to calm down and just concentrate on where he felt her spirit. Far down in his memories, nearly at the gates to…

_“Clara! Don’t go in there!”_

Now that he had sensed her spirit, he was at her side in the blink of an eye. But she had already entered the vault of his emotions.

They hit him.

He felt them all at once.

He hated.

He raged.

He was utterly, deeply scared.

The emotions overtook him.

They burnt his soul.

He knew them.

He knew them too well.

This. This was him.

Hateful.

Merciless.

No second chances.

Destroying.

Killing.

_“Doctor?”_

The Oncoming Storm.

The Destroyer of Worlds.

_“Doctor, what are these flames?”_

Death to the Daleks!

Death to the Cybermen!

Death to everything and everyone taking the ones he loved from him!

_“Doctor, they are closing in, they burn me!”_

Death to those who caused the losses!

Death to those who caused the sadness!

Death to those who caused the loneliness!

_“Doctor, I’m scared!”_

Clara.

She was in danger.

He had to concentrate on that.

She shouldn’t be here with him.

He had the duty of care.

He needed to focus on her and bring her back to safety.

No time to waste.

_“Clara!”_

He couldn’t feel her spirit anymore.

It wasn’t at his side like it should be.

_“Clara?”_

_“Doctor! It burns!”_

_“Clara!”_

Focus, Doctor, focus.

You have a duty of care.

You have to save her.

Calm.

Think.

Think.

This is your brain.

She experiences things different than you.

No time for rage.

You have to think.

You have the duty of care.

You have to get her out of danger.

Stop raging.

Think.

It’s different for her.

_“Doctor! The flames are becoming smaller now. Whatever you do, keep doing it!”_

What did he do?

He wasn’t aware he was doing anything.

Apart from thinking.

And trying to will back his rage.

Oh.

Of course!

Calm, Doctor, calm.

No need to rage.

Everything is okay.

This is your brain.

You are in control.

You can save Clara.

You just have to be calm.

Stop raging.

Calm.

_“It works, Doctor, the flames are retreating now.”_

He could feel her spirit again.

He immediately wrapped her spirit in his embrace.

_“Clara!”_

_“Doctor. What was this? This was scary!”_

He felt she was shaken and scared.

He shouldn’t have let it come to this.

It was his fault.

He should never have allowed this telepathic connection in the first place.

_“Doctor, there are hands!”_

He felt that something drew her spirit away.

_“Doctor, they are cold and dark. They are dragging me away!”_

He didn’t feel her anymore.

How could he be so stupid?

He was a bad telepath after all.

Why wasn’t he better at controlling it?

How could he let her slip away once more!

_“Doctor, I’m scared!”_

No time to worry about it.

He had to do something.

He had the duty of care.

_“Doctor! What is happening?”_

Think.

It was different for her.

Think.

Last time it was rage.

What was it now?

Oh, he wished he was better at this.

_“Doctor! Help me! They strangle me!”_

She is in danger, you stupid idiot.

Do something!

_“Doctor!”_

It sounded strangled.

Strangled in telepathy.

This wasn’t possible.

She experienced it differently.

Whatever happened here, he had to end it.

An emotion.

Think, Doctor idiot!

Guilt.

That must be it.

And self-loathing.

But how could he stop himself from feeling guilty for what happened.

_“Doct…aaargh!”_

_“Clara, I know what it is, but I don’t know what I can do about it. It’s guilt! I’m responsible for what happens to you and I don’t know how I can stop hating myself for letting it happen!”_

He didn’t know what to do but at least he could let her know what happened.

Maybe if he continued communicating with her, he would find a solution.

_“Last time, the flames you experienced, that was hate and rage, Clara. I was able to make them go away because I tried to calm myself and stopped raging. I was able to control this. But this is guilt. And I hate myself for letting it happen. I can’t stop that. I am responsible that this happens to you, I can’t stop feeling guilty about it.”_

_“It’s okay, Doctor, it’s not your fault! It never was!”_

It still sounded strangled.

_“I wanted to see this. I went there. It wasn’t your fault.”_

It sounded steadier now.

_“Stop assuming it is always your fault, Doctor. You are not responsible for this. I went here. Stop hating yourself. You came to look for me. You tried everything within your power. It’s okay. It really is!”_

Suddenly he felt her spirit again.

She was at his side.

He wrapped his spirit around her.

Somehow, she had managed to beat the monsters of his emotions. She was really astounding. His impossible girl. His brave companion. His Clara.

But he had to react quicker this time. He broke the hug and closed the dimension around them. They were still in the vault, but now, they were in a protected sphere inside of it. An inverse snapshot.

_“What was this, Doctor? And, where are we?”_

_“This… this is the place where my emotions are. And as you experienced, it is a very, very dangerous place. Not surprising that most Time Lords lock it completely.”_

_“I still don’t understand. The flames, they were real. They burnt me. And I couldn’t breathe when the hands strangled me.”_

_“I don’t understand it either. I have never let a human come to this place in telepathy, so this is new to me, too. Your brain searched for representations from your world when I showed you where my knowledge and my memories are. It seems my emotions… your brain lets you experience them in a physical way.”_

_“That was pretty scary. And interesting. I never assumed your emotions were that strong.”_

_“They are.”_

_“And only when you controlled them, I was able to break free.”_

_“The first time, with the hate and the rage, yes. I don’t understand what happened the second time when my guilt and the self-loathing dragged you away.”_

_“I… I think… I told you it wasn’t your fault. Maybe only this one time you listened to me, you stupid old man.”_

He felt a warm, caring emotion from her.

He thought they should better break the telepathic bond before more terrible things could happen.

_„What’s that, Doctor?“_

Of course, being strangled and burned hadn’t shut down her curiosity. She was, in every sense, impossible.

_“What do you mean? What do you see?”_

_“There is something like a door. It has a seam all around as if it were welded shut. But it has a crack, a large crack. And something is leaking from it. Something golden…”_

Oh no, of course she spotted it.

He felt it. He felt it dripping into his hearts. It took all his efforts to shield what it was away from her. He guarded this fact to an extend that made his whole self hurt.

But of course, he had the most inquisitive spirit beside him. The one that had caused this crack and the leaking.

_“I already know it is an emotion, Doctor. And as I already saw hate and rage, I take it this is the opposite spectrum.”_

She was much too smart for his liking.

_“Why is it sealed?”_

_“I sealed it. Upon regeneration.”_

_“Why?”_

He felt his resistance crumble. The wish to make her understand, the wish to explain it to the only person that mattered enough to him that he wanted her to understand him and accept him like he was, this wish was so strong he gave in.

_“If you are never happy, you are never sad. If you don’t care for anybody, you don’t fear losing them. If you don’t fear losing them, you can make wise decisions. You are never torn between saving a planet and saving your companion. If you lose them and you don’t have this, this terrible thing in there, then, there is no grief and sorrow and loneliness. If you seal this spectrum away, you won’t suffer again!”_

It was nearly a mental shout, out of agony and desperation.

_“It’s love, isn’t it? You sealed away love and all emotions related to it?”_

He nodded mentally.

_“I understand. But there’s a crack and something comes through.”_

He nodded again.

_“What happened, Doctor?”_

_“Clara Oswald.”_

_“What? I’m here. I’m still here. I haven’t gone anywhere.”_

_“No. You asked what happened, what caused this crack and I told you: Clara Oswald. Clara Oswald happened.”_


	13. The Crack

_„What do you mean, I happened?”_

He felt incredulity and anxiety from her side.

He had gone this far. He had allowed her into his mind. He had shown her so much of what he was, what shaped him, what tortured him. She had even entered the dark vault where his emotions resided. He couldn’t lie in telepathy and he didn’t feel like hiding it any longer. She had a right to know. 

_“A right to know what? What happened?”_

_“You happened. You haven’t left me. You were close to leaving me a couple of times, but in the end you didn’t. You stayed. The seal held tight the very first time you looked at me and really saw that I was still the Doctor. When you smiled at me, it was still a smile you had for him, for bowtie me. But then, after we were inside the Dalek, when you told me that I was trying to be a good man and that this was probably the point… you smiled at me, and this smile, Clara, this wonderful, tiny smile was for me. It was for the man I had become, not for the man I was before. It caused a small, really tiny crack in that seal. And the longer you stayed… whenever you smiled that way… or… whenever you gave me the feeling that I’m not a complete failure… the crack widened.”_

_“And love is coming back. For me it looks like a golden liquid. It’s beautiful. It’s dripping out of that crack and disappears in the ground.”_

_“It feels like dripping to me, too. It is dripping into my hearts. It’s terrible!”_

_“How can something so beautiful… Love is beautiful, Doctor, I think that’s why my mind choses this image of a beautiful, glowing, golden liquid. Why do you say it’s terrible?”_

_“I… after that incident, I started loving things again. Small things first. And it hurt losing them. And the more that crack widened, the more it hurt…”_

He felt her spirit radiating comfort and… compassion. And something… else. He didn’t dare to think about what that was.

_“It is terrible, don’t you understand, Clara? It clouds my ability to judge. If I love something and something is happening to it, I will try to protect it at all cost. I will take high risks. I will make decisions that will save the one thing I love but condemns whole planets to destruction. What happens when that crack grows wider? Will I commit genocide because of it? Will I risk the universe for someone I love?”_

_“Shhh, Doctor, you sound terrified. Don’t be. It’s alright. Don’t be afraid of that crack. Don’t you see that love is essential to the Doctor?”_

_“It seems the opposite to me. Clara, if something happens to you, I think I will risk time and space, just to save you! And how would that make me different from any other monster out there? They all have good reasons if you look at it from their point of view!”_

He felt her spirit hesitating. She seemed to have difficulties to belief what she had just heard. She tried to make sense of it. Then, there was something like relief.

_“Shhh, don’t judge yourself so cruelly. Someone who is only cool and rational doesn’t go out there and stops monsters. My Doctor, he stops the monsters because he cares. He cares for the little ones and the big ones. Because life matters to him. Because there are no lives that are more valuable than others. He can’t sacrifice the life of a companion for the wellbeing of a whole species. Because he loves both. It is an impossible duty you took up, saving the universe. A painful one. It is one that often only leaves you with terrible choices. I know that, I understand that.”_

He felt her spirit tingling close, touching his spirit. A soft, mental touch.

_“I understand many things now. And I think you are missing something important here.”_

Something important? What? What did he miss? He was sure he had thought about it more often than he could count throughout all his incarnations. And he was absolutely sure that he had based the decision to seal this emotion away on enough data and evidence that it was the only right thing to do and allowing it back into his hearts was wrong.

_“You mentioned our adventure inside the Dalek… When you tried to show the Dalek the beauty of life and the universe, he looked inside you. And you were surprised that he only saw hatred. Now, after I have seen this: How could he see anything else? He couldn’t see love. That emotion was inside you, but it was locked. He couldn’t see it. You transformed the Dalek, but only to the extend you were allowing yourself to be. Rusty tries to be good, but only the way he can, based on the emotions which he found here, in this place. Hate, rage, fear, guilt, self-loathing, this is what he saw. This is what transformed him from a normal Dalek to a Dalek hating Daleks. The closest to a good Dalek he could become with what he was given.”_

This… was plausible. Daleks were fueled with emotions. So, he had had the chance to create a good Dalek but missed it because of his own stupidity.

_“Can’t you see that it goes further? Haven’t you just seen what happens if you hate yourself? This feeling strangled me, but this was just a representation my mind chose to translate it for my human understanding. It strangles you, Doctor! You need the emotion behind that door, not only for the sake of others and for being the Doctor, you need it for yourself. It is vital. You said it is dripping into your hearts already. Open it. Let love fill your hearts again!”_

She was right. He was sure she was right. But she had no idea how helpless and lost it made him feel, because he didn’t know how he could change what he had done.

_“I’m not sure I can do this, Clara. I could seal it, but I don’t know how to open it again. It seems I… I… can’t do it myself. I… You caused the crack and you are the one who is able to widen it. Clara, I fear, I can’t do it alone. I need you.”_

He felt her spirit reaching around him, caring… loving… he had no idea humans could do this in telepathy. A bit insecure, perhaps, but there she was. It had been a long time since someone had touched him this way. He had nearly forgotten how it felt. Her spirit came extremely close to the edges of his spirit.

_“I will do everything I can, Doctor. You are the most important being in my life and whatever it takes, I will do.”_

_“I don’t deserve a friend like you, Clara Oswald.”_

_“Shhh, Doctor, not the self-loathing, remember? Earlier on, when you took care of me because I was depressed, I felt that I didn’t deserve a friend like you. Maybe we just… deserve each other?”_

He felt the crack widen. She radiated warmth and comfort… and? He didn’t dare to think it. Too scary… and too amazing to think about it.

He felt her spirit wrapped around his own. Close, so close. He longed to cross that last boundary and let his spirit melt into her spirit.

_“Doctor, the crack widened again, the golden liquid, it is flowing now.”_

_“I know, I can feel it.”_

_“This, this is beautiful. And I… I… Doctor, there is something. I think I can almost… I can almost feel you… your emotions… there is something…”_

Of course. With the love flowing back into his hearts, his love for her grew even stronger. If she really… if this feeling was mutual, there was not much holding the barrier between their spirits upright. He wanted it to happen, he wanted to melt his spirit with her spirit. He was surprised by the strength of his desire. The most intimate connection, become one with the other, being one spirit, one soul, one being. It had been a long time… and never with a human… He was sure it was very dangerous. He wasn’t sure if entering this vault hadn’t damaged her human brain already, he didn’t even dare to think about what melting their spirits could do to her.

He willed back his desire. He forced himself to stay in control and act responsible.

_“Clara, I think it is time to break the bond. I don’t have enough experience with telepathic connections with humans to understand what is going on here. The last thing I want to do is harm you. If you start feeling my emotions, it could be dangerous and I think it is high time that I guide you back and we break the bond, okay?”_

For some reason it was important for him to have her consent even for breaking the connection.

_“It’s okay Doctor. I think I’m feeling what you are feeling and for what it’s worth, it feels pretty similar to what I am feeling towards you. But we do have time, Doctor, there is no need to rush anything. Let’s go back, break the bond.”_

He carefully held her spirit close to his own before he opened up the sphere to his emotions and left the vault as quickly as possible. He took a last look at the crack while he closed the dimension behind them. It really was a large crack now and a stream was flowing into his hearts.

He was a bit surprised how much love and compassion he had sealed away there.

He had no idea he had had this much in the first place.


	14. Going Back - Or Further?

He gently guided her spirit back to her own brain. He was glad that she was in safety again and avoided to think about the consequences of what they just experienced together.

He gave her a final telepathic hug before he broke the connection.

When he was aware of his surroundings again, he was surprised to find himself in a tight embrace with Clara. They were effectively clinging to each other, her head resting on his head, her arms closely wrapped around him, his hands resting on her back and on her shoulder.

Each one trying to protect the other while at the same time seeking for the other’s protection.

It was a closeness he would usually feel uncomfortable with, yet…

It didn’t feel awkward.

It felt intimate and… in a strange kind of way… right.

He was not sure if Clara was awake or if she had been fallen asleep immediately. Telepathy was always exhausting, not only for the mind but also for the body, and as far as he knew this had been her first telepathic experience.

He carefully reached up to her head and rested his hand on the back of it.

“Clara?”

He whispered.

“Mhm?”

She mumbled, sleepily.

“Perhaps… this is not a comfortable position to sleep in, don’t you think?” He said as softly as possible.

“Oh…”

She seemed to realize the position she was in just now. But she didn’t move.

“What’s the matter? Are you paralyzed?”

He felt a sudden panic rising, his hearts pounding fast in his chest. Had their connection damaged her? Did he damage her brain? Her body? Humans were so fragile.

“No, don’t worry, it’s just…”

“What?”

“I’m afraid.”

He swallowed hard.

“Of what? Of moving?”

“You will go away if I let you go, right?”

Oh.

“You don’t want me to leave?”

“Of course not. But you would want to go, right?”

“Not… not necessarily. Not if you don’t want me to go… It’s just that my arm is a bit numb from your weight and I would really appreciate if we could shift our position a little, so it doesn’t fall off.”

“Oh.”

She lifted he head and looked down at him. He was glad to be able to look into her eyes again. It had been a very intimate connection with her spirit, there had been the memories he relived, but… but… he had missed looking into her beautiful brown eyes face to face.

He rolled on his back and pumped his fist a few times to get the blood flowing again. It felt like a thousand ants were crawling in his hand. There was another, warmer, more pleasant tingling in his stomach. And a warm feeling around his hearts.

He looked over to Clara who was looking at him. She looked tired, but a small smile crinkled her lips.

There was something he missed …

To his surprise, he already missed feeling her body close to him.

Was she feeling the same?

Maybe.

She liked hugging.

She didn’t want him to leave.

So…

Maybe he could try something…

He arched and eyebrow and patted with his flat hand on his chest.

Her smile broadened and she let her head sink to his chest.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

She snuggled a bit closer to his side and wrapped her arm around him.

He closed his eyes and inhaled her smell.

“Do you think you can sleep that way?”

He asked, in a low voice, nearly a whisper.

She nodded.

“I think so, you are very comfy.”

He smiled and tenderly rubbed her shoulder with his thumb. She felt comfortable in his embrace. That was nice. It felt comfortable to feel her weight on his chest, too.

“Then sleep, telepathy is exhausting.”

She nodded and relaxed into his embrace.

He sighed.

He had much to think about.

He loved her.

Apparently, and for some weird, inexplicable reason, there was a slight chance she loved him, too.

Did they have a relationship now?

Or was this something else?

He didn’t have any experience with relationships.

What was a relationship?

What was the difference between a relationship and a friendship?

Was there a difference?

If two people loved each other, could they still be friends?

Did she want to have a relationship with him?

What did he do in a relationship?

Did people who had a relationship still go out on adventures together?

Or did they stay at home and cleaned the flat?

Did she want to leave her flat and move into his TARDIS?

If this was a relationship, would he be a boyfriend, then?

He didn’t feel like a boyfriend.

What was a boyfriend, anyway?

What did boyfriends do, usually?

Maybe he needed to do some research on that.

The available information on this whole complex thing of human relationships was really spotty in his brain. He should have paid closer attention to them in the past. He really should do something about that. Was this a human relationship? What was a human relationship with a Time Lord? Was this the Hybrid? Well, Clara wouldn’t count as warrior race. Although, she really was a warrior. The bravest he knew. But were they the Hybrid, then? Or was, if they had kids together, the kid the Hybrid. If they had several kids, were they multiple Hybrids? Hybreeds? Hybridizes? Hebrides?

“Doctor…”

Well, maybe it was safer to adopt something. Maybe a cat? Did Clara like cats? What about the TARDIS? Did the TARDIS like cats?

“Doctor…”

“What?”

“No one can sleep when you are thinking this fast, this loud and so much nonsense!”

Oh, right. He was still a crappy telepath. He had forgotten to shield his brain. He had dropped his guard completely. He was too tired and too confused to pick it up again. And he didn’t feel the need to protect himself. At least for tonight, he left his mind and himself vulnerable to one Clara Oswald. His thoughts were all hers if she wanted to read them. He was just a bit afraid of things changing between them.

“Doctor, nothing has to change between us. Nothing to be anxious about at least. We are best friends. We might be even more than that. But, most important: we trust and respect each other. And this is enough for the moment. We only do what we feel comfortable doing, okay?”

“Okay,” he sighed.

This didn’t sound too bad. This sounded doable. It sounded good. He didn’t want to change anything. Oh, well, he did want to change some things. Being close to her, for example. This was nice. He could smell her hair more often if they were closer.

“Doctor… are you not tired?”

Was he tired? Yes, he was tired. Tired and excited. And happy. And anxious. But mostly excited. Or tired?

“Ah, yes, yes, I’m a bit tired, too.”

“Then sleep, you daft old man. And smell my hair if you like it that much.”

He nuzzled her hair and inhaled. It smelled very much like Clara. It had a calming effect on his nerves.

He placed a kiss on her hair.

“Sleep well.”

He murmured against her head as he forced himself not to think about anything.

He just listened to her soft breathing and her steady heartbeat against his body.

It was soothing.

He was a very happy Time Lord.

He doubted that anybody in this universe was this happy.

He didn’t want to sleep.

Instead, he saved this memory.

He enjoyed the peaceful moment, her body touching his, her smell surrounding him like a loving embrace.

Her warmth.

Her breath.

Her heartbeat.

Before he knew it, he was tight asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, well, marking this one as finished now. 
> 
> If you liked this story and want to know how their relationship develops, but only if you like the thought that it develops into something more than just friendship from here, you might want to read [The Long Journey](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24407377/chapters/58878961).

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, comments and prompts for this story or other stories as always much appreciated :3


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